The three players Klopp will wait for until the last minute for Sunday's final

The coach trusts them, but needs them to recover physically to face Chelsea.

23/02/2024, 04:46 PM +00:00

It is getting closer and closer to the most important game Liverpool will have, up to this point, in the season. They will have the chance to win the first title of the year when they face Chelsea in the Carabao Cup final at Wembley, a stadium that surely will be packed with fans of both teams who are eager to see their club celebrate.

For the Blues it may be the only chance to be champions in 2024, but the Reds are taking it more calmly. They have other objectives as well, such as the Premier League and the UEFA Europa League. In the former they are the sole leaders of the standings, with a small advantage over Manchester City and Arsenal. And in the European tournament they are in the round of 16, where they will face Sparta Prague.

However, the fact that the Carabao Cup is not the priority does not mean that Liverpool will not give their best to become champions. Coach Jürgen Klopp will try to field the best possible team, but he will have some limitations. Several players in the squad are injured and will not be able to play, such as Alisson Becker, Trent Alexander-Arnold, Curtis Jones and Diogo Jota. And others are in doubt.

On Friday, Klopp's assistant Pep Lijnders was asked about the situation of three stars who have had physical problems but still have a chance of recovering in time for Sunday: "Dom (Szoboszlai), Darwin (Nunez), and Mo (Salah), we have to really see," he explained. He added: "We have two more days. Today's session and tomorrow's session. In the last minute we will check. If they can be there it will be great, to be honest."

They are satisfied

Then Lijnders assured that the staff are not worried about injuries: "You need to accept what you have and not look at what you don't have, it brought us success in the past and we try to keep that up". And he also tried to find a positive aspect to these problems: "With a few injuries, you get young players and players who didn't play five games in a row but who can show up now. That's really cool. This season is a season where we have created three or four new teams in a season, it's a compliment to our squad and the academy."